Bangladesh Protest Urges Ban on Party

Government's Targeting of Islamists Over Atrocities in 1971 Independence War Is Likely to Exacerbate Tensions

By

Syed Zain Al-Mahmood

Feb. 18, 2013 11:31 a.m. ET

DHAKA, Bangladesh—Protesters who have thronged the streets of Bangladesh's capital for two weeks welcomed the government's move to seek harsher punishments for war criminals, but vowed to continue agitating until the nation's largest Islamist party is banned.

President Zillur Rahman on Monday signed a law that will allow prosecutors to appeal sentences handed down by a war-crimes tribunal that is investigating atrocities committed during the nation's 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. Prosecutors will be allowed to...